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John Glenn has headed west. At 95 years of age, America’s third astronaut into space, and the first American astronaut to orbit the earth has passed away. Our sentiments, and the sentiments of everyone who remembers those dangerous and heroic first days of space travel are best represented by a tweet that was issued by NASA immediately after his death, which reads: “We are saddened by the loss of Senator John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth. A true American hero. Godspeed, John Glenn." Walter Extra, the famous aerobatics pilot behind the Extra series of aerobatic planes, has set a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale world record in the new field of Electric-powered planes. On November 25, Extra flew a battery-powered plane and climbed to 3,000m, that’s just under 10,000 feet, in a time of 4 minutes - 22 seconds. In doing so, he broke the FAI world record for electric-powered planes that weigh between 500 and 1,000 kilograms, which equates to between 1100 and 2200 pounds. The flight was performed in an Extra 330 LE airplane powered by a Siemens electric motor that delivered approximately 230 horsepower, and weighs only 110 pounds. The Department of Transportation Inspector General's office initiated an audit of FAA’s processes for approving civil UAS operations and overseeing the safe operation of UAS. Among other things, they concluded that the FAA’s process of issuing UAS commercial operator waivers does not verify that operators actually meet or understand the conditions and limitations of their exemptions either before or after the application is approved. All this -- and MORE in today's episode of Airborne!!!

Get Comprehensive, Real-Time, 24/7 coverage of the latest aviation and aerospace stories anytime, at aero-news.net. And be sure to join us again next week for the next edition of "Airborne Unlimited" here on Aero-TV. Thanks for watching. See you, again, tomorrow!